Vacation
by Sydney Z. Hampshire
Summary: AU on the shore of a misty lake, a cold young man, straying away from his family meets anouther boy and strikes up a tentative friendship.


**Fandom: **FF7

**Characters: **Vague, as it is AU and they are unspecified, however they can be worked out.

**Vacation**

_(Sunshine On Your Shores)_

Poring rain. Poring rain coming down, down, down on end and ceaselessly. The sky was grey, the lake was grey, the grass was grey… It was normally a washed out muddy green, but it was the same gloomy evening that showed up, with its anorak and fisher-man's hat, every night, plunging everything into shades of gray, that slowly merged into one wash of seamless, changeless, Grey. Well, not everything. There was colour, it had first appeared three days ago, two days after the start of this stupid wet holiday.

They'd been arguing, I hate it when they argue, why can't they be like normal parents and just get split up? Okay so that sounds strange, but I know hardly anyone who's got a 'whole' family still… They don't recommend it, but it's got to be better than all this arguing, right? Besides, I think it's making Mother sick, and I hate seeing her sick, so I ran out, "I'm going for a walk around the lake!" and vanished before they could catch up, call out. I'm fast; I blend in, all grey, wet dull silver spoons in need of a polish. I'm the colour of spoons…

In this weather you can miss the obvious, even I can miss the obvious and the optician once said I had the best vision they'd ever seen, not that that means anything, mostly old ladies in there, men don't seem to last so long around them, but Mother is from up country, up country ladies are not so strong. I'd been running along the water's edge, yeah, I bet you can guess where this is going, heading for the pontoon, ignoring the 'Warning! Slippery!' signs in favour for wallowing in my own self-pity, I do that an awful lot, I really shouldn't and I don't suppose it's healthy. I was just thinking that when the slime moved under my foot and over I went, pitched over, anticipating the freezing cold water reaching up to pull me down, but I stopped. Hanging on the edge of soggy oblivion, feet braced on the side, leaning dangerously, my shoulder screaming as I pivoted back towards the pontoon.

The first thing I noticed was how small he was, then how embarrassing it was a kid had saved me, then how glad I was that I hadn't fallen on him, or I might have been poked to death with his hair, which was actually beginning to look a bit limp in this rain now that I come to look properly. He invited me back to his villa, his mother was out. I've never been so grateful for a towel, the rain was penetrating.

Over hot chocolate we introduced ourselves. I teased him, but he teased me, and I suppose he was right too, my name is definitely stranger, and harder to spell. He was shy and wouldn't meet my eyes, but that doesn't make him strange, many people won't meet my eyes, they're just a little too eerie I suppose. But I liked him, he was nice, and didn't know who I was, who my family were, they'd scared off all my other prospective friends. I was not going to take this boy to see them.

They, my Father anyhow, Mother just kept quiet, asked where I'd been. Walking. I'd said, and gone to bed. I don't think they believed me.

Three days past. Every day I went out. Every day I was disappointed; he just never showed up, not that we'd agreed to or anything.

Tomorrow we're leaving, tonight I'm curled up in my blanket watching out the window, and I'm not so disappointed now. I wave and he raises his arms, a splash of gold in my grey world, bright and sunny and I open the window, wanting to be closer to his radiant warmth, he called out, "We're going tomorrow!"  
"So are we!"  
"I'm going to miss you!"  
"We barely talked!"  
"I wanted to, I'm sorry…!"  
"Wait there!"

I ran downstairs, it was late afternoon, Mother and Father would be back soon but it didn't matter now. I let him in; his smile drew like from me. We drank hot chocolate again and didn't talk much, I'm ashamed to say it actually, I wish we had been able to talk, but we didn't really need to, and I know why. He felt the same as me, one day, all this comradeship would be gone, it would change dramatically for reasons out of our control, so best make the most of this time now, because who knew how long it would last…


End file.
